How to build a poker bankroll (the right way)

Many online poker players get stuck in an endless loop of depositing, playing, and inevitably going broke.

The reasons?

It’s usually one – if not a combination – of these three things.

Either they’re not exercising appropriate bankroll management and playing tournaments they shouldn’t be playing.

They’re playing in the wrong games – games that are too difficult or have too much variance, like Spin & Gos.

Or they’re not studying and improving at the game and the competition has become too hard for them to win.

If longevity in poker is important to you and you’re guilty of any of those things listed above, it’s not too late to change things up.

TIP: Read our article ‘How to break the ‘deposit > play > bust’ cycle for good’

That’s what BBZ Poker student Matt, known in our Discord as “NeverWinPots”, did recently.

The 25-year-old from Leicester, UK works in the home energy field and would frequently deposit any disposable income he had (money he could comfortably afford to lose) onto poker sites. He was playing tournaments up to a $55 buy-in, despite not really having a comfortable bankroll.

He enjoyed some nice scores – chopping the Sunday Storm for $12K – but then started firing in tournaments he wasn’t bankrolled for. A downswing ensued, and he was back to square one.

He stopped playing poker for two years.

Then in March 2023, Matt decided he was going to build a bankroll the right way. He figured out his strengths and which games he excelled in. He only played in tournaments that his bankroll could afford. And importantly, he decided to study properly.

Matt joined the BBZ Poker Daily Seminars and it didn’t take long for the results to start coming.

“The pricing model of $60 a month [for the Daily Seminars] seemed far too reasonable to turn down,” he tells us. “And I think with my results in the first month of playing and studying with BBZ, it has more than paid for itself.”

We spoke to Matt about what led to a change in his poker habits, what surprised him about the Daily Seminars, and his goals for the future.

You can read the full conversation below.

BBZ Blog: Hey Matt. Congratulations on the success this month. How much did you study prior to joining BBZ Poker? Was there a particular reason you felt it was time to improve?

Matt ‘NeverWinPots’: I studied very sparingly prior to BBZ. In 2018/19 I had a subscription to a poker training site but the quality was nothing like BBZ and I eventually decided it wasn’t really benefitting me. I ended the subscription and continued to play without any study (with pretty mediocre results).

I decided it was finally time to take up study as I started to build a proper bankroll and the pricing model of $60 a month seemed far too reasonable to turn down. And I think with my results in the first month of playing and studying with BBZ it has more than paid for itself.

What led you to sign up for the BBZ Daily Seminars?

Just constantly hearing how good the value was, and my deep desire to get better at the game that I absolutely love.

What things have surprised you the most about the Daily Seminars?

The fact that you don’t have to be there every day to benefit. As much as the live sessions are a benefit, the fact that there are just pages and pages of old seminars to go through whenever you have the time, is absolutely amazing. You can search for any tags of what topic you want to study and you have a plethora of seminars to watch.

What have been your biggest takeaways?

Blind vs Blind work has been massive for me. I feel like I was bleeding blinds previously, but now I feel far more confident in how to approach those situations and I’ve actually turned it into a strength in my game.

Is there anything you attribute your recent results to apart from your study?

Mainly it has been identifying my best games and focusing on getting in huge volume. I definitely feel I excel in turbos in comparison to slower variants. I have used turbos and hypers to help build my bankroll, and the plan going forward is to do a lot of work on PKOs and identify my leaks there.

Could you walk me through your poker background? How did it all start for you?

I first discovered poker on Twitch when I was 18/19. I found Fintan (EasyWithAces) and Spraggy’s stream completely by chance and just fell in love with the game.

I played regularly for a couple of years, with some nice scores, but my graph was always very swingy. I generally played up to a $55 buy-in, but I never played with a roll, it was always just whatever disposable income I had from my job. I was living at home with my parents so I had a decent amount of wiggle room with my finances.

My biggest score, which it still is to date, was when I four-way chopped the $11 Sunday Storm for around $12K. At that point, it was about half of my annual income and I was just in disbelief.

However, I definitely started firing things I wasn’t rolled for, and this led to a bit of a downswing, and me stepping away from regular play for over two years.

In the meantime, I started streaming on Twitch, playing Call Of Duty mainly. I thoroughly enjoyed streaming, but I started to lose enjoyment in playing COD. This is where I started to look back to poker. Although I have not streamed as much as I would have liked, I am definitely looking to increase the volume of my streams going forward, as I get better as a player.

What are your goals in poker and how do you plan to achieve them?

My plan for the moment is to build my bankroll to be six figures – I’ve still got a long way to go.

Eventually, I would love to be in a position where I could play poker full-time, but there is a lot more work to be done before I can consider that a reality.